Why It's Delusional to Think a Campaign for a Constitutional Amendment Can End Citizens United

[KoKo]

I have great sadness to post this ...Because I've signed Petitions, Donated and Believed in our Democratic Organizations and their Efforts for Years. There's much here in this post that should alert our Progressive Dems and DU'ers that we need to FIND A BETTER WAY. The article points out where we've gone wrong...yet doesn't say how to fix it ..except to elect "More and Better Dems" and hope for a Better "Supreme Court" in the future....(way out future) before our Problems can be Resolved.

I think there are better ways...more Creative Ways and Ways that have already been proposed that bypass our Left Organizations who often want Money & Influence to fill their Pockets rather than REAL REFORM.

I post this because it reveals a history of BETRAYAL..and if one is a Dem who is horrified by the events we've now lived through for DECADES then this is a WAKE UP CALL.

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THE ARTICLE....and it's WELL WORTH THE READ:


Why It's Delusional to Think a Campaign for a Constitutional Amendment Can End Citizens United
Citizens United has delivered our democracy to billionaires. But there's a danger in pushing reform that won't work.

September 8, 2014 |


The three-plus-year push for a constitutional amendment on money and politics, leading to a bill sponsored by Senator Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, ended with a predictable thud in the Senate Thursday morning when 54 senators, including all Democrats, voted for it, and all 42 Republicans voted against it. Since two-thirds of the Senate is necessary to pass an amendment, and no Republicans indicated any interest, it never had a chance.

The push for the 28th Amendment was a desperate reaction to the latest series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have unleashed an unprecedented flood of secret money into American elections. As Steven Rosenfeld reported, super-donors have more power and influence than ever, thanks to many court decisions leading up to Citizens United. In response, a huge campaign by dozens of liberal advocacy groups and a relentless Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) garnered more than 1.5 million online signatures to line up votes for a 28th Amendment in the hope it would pass a first hurdle in a long, virtually impossible path. In other words, given today’s hyper-partisan political landscape, the biggest effort to engage federal lawmakers on the topic of rescuing American democracy was fated to fail.

On Monday, it was first thought Senate Republicans would prevent debate, which would have killed the amendment on the spot, since five Republican votes were needed to begin debate and break a filibuster. But then some members of the GOP saw utility in allowing the debate to advance to score some points. The vote to open debate was 79-18 and immediately seized by groups like MoveOn.org and DCCC, and hyped as a harbinger of big progress, but that was far from true. When Laurence O’Donnell shared his delight on his MSNBC show that night, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken, had to break the spell and tell him sorry, but this is all a maneuver by those sneaky Republicans to run down the clock to prevent any progress on issues like minimum wage before a recess.

So by Thursday, the charade ended. The sporadic debate interrupted by lack of quorum, and by more compelling issues like the militarization of the police and the ISIL foreign crisis crawled to a halt and the amendment fell 13 votes short. The predictable failure of this effort—along with the fact that constitutional amendments on campaign finance have been debated four times in the Senate dating back to 1987 and all have failed (even though in the past they attracted some Republican votes)—suggests it's time to step back and ask some hard questions.

Is the amendment route the smartest approach? Is it the only pathway to political reform? Has it helped build a progressive movement? Or was it bumper-sticker politics, and primarily Internet clicktivism, that deluded many reformers and didn’t threaten America’s wealthy political insiders in any serious way?

The Push For the Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on campaign finance, usually referred to in shorthand as overturning Citizens United, really freaked many people out. As predicted, the Supreme Court's (SCOTUS) rulings have led the political culture to run further amok with super-rich donors dominating the process as never before. Even though there has been a long history of SCOTUS voting to treat money as speech, the Roberts Court’s decisions seemed over the top—especially by narrowing the definitions of political corruption. They reinforced the sense that American democracy belongs to the few, leaving many citizens feeling alienated from the political process and concluding there’s not much anyone can do. And that big question remains: what can people do?

A national push for a constitutional amendment was what some people thought should happen. On Monday, a bill from Sen. Udall made it to the floor that would restore the authority of Congress, individual states and the American people to regulate campaign finance, the New Mexico Democrat's website explained. And it would clarify in the Constitution that money does not equal speech, effectively reversing Supreme Court decisions dating back to the 1970s that have increased the power and influence of wealthy donors.

MUCH MORE AT THE SITE...for THIS WEEKEND READ:

http://www.alternet.org/activism/why-its-delusional-think-campaign-constitutional-amendment-can-end-citizens-united

[NYC_SKP]

1. Recommended.

Good read, the problem is deeper than to be fixed by any single action, as dreamy as that prospect may seem.

[KoKo]

8. Rather than dwell over the time it takes to get "More & Better Dems"

and Wait for the Supreme Court to have "More & Better Lib/Dems" what about my Post Here #3?

What about Full On Assault of FCC to get this proposal through. What do you think of it.

Post #3 on this thread.

I think we could do this if we could get the Dem Money Bags "Think Tanks" on our side.....with Challenging Them?

[NYC_SKP]

9. The battlefield between us and #3 is pretty much the same as the "general battlefield"...

Maybe because I'm an educator, every problem looks like ignorance and a teaching moment.

BUT, I think education and then building consensus and then encouraging action are the steps to get where you and I want to go.

We must enable and encourage, not goad, others into taking action.

One of my role models has on his tombstone these words:



One needs a bit of background in aviation, maybe, to understand.

Happy to explain if you don't get it.

[KoKo]

10. Yes...you might want to explain that Tombstone....

That's gotta be quite a story!

But....you didn't answer what I said about going at the FCC to revise "Fairness Doctrine" ...etc. You give me "Bucky" and then...what do you think about going after FCC?

[NYC_SKP]

11. I recommend any work by Lawrence Lessig, like Free Culture.

The US government has historically granted citizens all the power they need, but we've ceded this over to whatever PTBs.

It doesn't have to be that way.

It's a big topic, it has to do with letting go, with denying that ownership is a valid principal.

We've a long way to go.

If you ever have the time, read the book which is free to read via creative commons license.

Also, for kicks, the Lessig documentary Remix!

It all connect, you have to trust me.

http://remix.lessig.org/

[KoKo]

12. Bill Moyers did an Excellent Interview with Lessing...

He seemed the Hope of the Future for a New Movement.

I'm skeptical....but thank you for the info. You know I will read it..over weekend, hopefully.

The article I posted wasn't so favorable to him....but...then... there is so much disinfo ...one works hard to keep up.

But do you agree that there are better ways to deal with "Citizens United" than waiting for the Supreme Court to to Overturn it....or should we deal locally to deal with this issue and really Pressure the FCC to put guidelines in that go back to when we had "equal time for Candiate Ads" and then to get disclosure of exactly who funds these ads ...digging into the weeds. We could do this quicker than waiting to elect "More and Better Dems" (when will that be) or to hope that whatever President we get will be able to get a VERY LIBERAL or TWO Appointees through into the Supreme Court...and then how long to Overturn...Citizens United and the Precedents that led up to that decision. Could take more years after that even with a Liberal Court....

Hillary seems to be a Given for 2014.... Do you trust a Dem Sweep? Odds are against it Historically because we've had a two-term Dem and voters are unhappy....so there's usually the switch to the opposite Party. If Hillary does succeed....do you trust her with the Supreme Court Nominations if she ends up winning but with Repub Congress and still the same thin margin of Dems in the Senate? Wouldn't it be "more of the same?"

[NYC_SKP]

13. I fear that people miss the the point of government.

I'm an inventor, a disciple of Davinci, but also a disruptor and and as such a misfit.

Can't say more, just testifying to my experience.

If we claim IP then we dismiss our potential, our future.

My life changing exchanges were with William Ayers and L. Hunter Lovins.

I want to do better, I missed a lot of luminaries.

[KoKo]

14. Ahhh...Bucky Fuller...!

Here's a bit of interesting quotes from him which seem to be very prescient...But, then he was an incredible futurist. I would differ with his view on this one sentence: ".. all politicians can and will yield enthusiastically to the computers safe flight-controlling capabilities in bringing all of humanity in for a happy landing."

I don't get the connection between "happy landing" and politicians "yielding enthusiastically" but it's obvious that the Computer is now allowing global communities to talk with each other, share information and erasing boundaries of "specialization."

The rest seems to follow the use of computers going far past specialized use for mathematics and science...and has finally expanded into communication, education and expansion of creative expression which may lead to the societal change he envisioned.

I read him in my early 20's...and some of what he said was interesting but much else seemed "too far out" when I was that age. But, these quotes seem to eerily address my OP in some way. At least in my mind at this moment.

Thanks for the memory jog.

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http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

Synergy is the only word in our language which identifies the meaning for which it stands. Since the word is unknown to the average public, as I have already pointed out, it is not at all surprising that synergy has not been included in the economic accounting of our wealth transactions or in assessing our common wealth capabilities.

You may very appropriately want to ask me how we are going to resolve the ever-acceleratingly dangerous impasse of world-opposed politicians and ideological dogmas. I answer, it will be resolved by the computer.

While no politician or political system can ever afford to yield understandably and enthusiastically to their adversaries and opposers, all politicians can and will yield enthusiastically to the computers safe flight-controlling capabilities in bringing all of humanity in for a happy landing.

And------------------------

Introduction
The Wellspring of Reality

The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies.

We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. . . . In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war.

Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions.

There is an inherently minimum set of essential concepts and current information, cognizance of which could lead to our operating our planet Earth to the lasting satisfaction and health of all humanity.

We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.

The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much territory too thinly to be persuasive, let alone convincing. In science, however, a generalization means a principle that has been found to hold true in every special case. ... The principle of leverage is a scientific generalization.

Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction.

The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic. It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.

We are now synergetically forced to conclude that all phenomena are metaphysical; wherefore, as many have long suspected — like it or not — "life is but a dream."

The wellspring of reality is the family of weightless generalized principles.

It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday, which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction.

The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies. The youth of Earth are moving intuitively toward an utterly classless, raceless, omnicooperative, omniworld humanity. Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious Universe.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

[djean111]

2. I do not think either party is going to give up all of that money.

Remember when Obama reversed his pledge to only use public campaign money? I think the huge corporate money is addictive, plus the media wants the big money for advertising, and they have lots of lobbyists. Not gonna shoo those pigs away from the trough easily or soon, IMO. And then, of course, we have accepted that, once elected, politicians must needs obey the folks what bought their ticket to the dance. Without even much of a whimper, really.

[KoKo]

5. Well said...and as we go forward...TRUTH OUTS....

As You Say...seems to be What it IS these days:

Not gonna shoo those pigs away from the trough easily or soon, IMO. And then, of course, we have accepted that, once elected, politicians must needs obey the folks what bought their ticket to the dance. Without even much of a whimper, really.

[KoKo]

3. Anyone have a Link to Confronting FCC to get MONEY RESTRICTED in POLITICS?

Particularly about Laurence Lessing's Campaign which so many Progressives have Signed Onto....and Donated to after his appearance on Bill Moyers.

Awhile back I read an article about how we could cut the influence of the Citizens United decision. I can't remember the source but this is what I remember of the article:

There is one way of stopping this that gets little mention. We could work on getting the FCC to bring back some parts of the "Fairness Doctrine," modified. Force the the TV/Radio/MSM to give Free and Equal Airtime to all Candidates. Put limits on the time allowed so that everyone gets their two minutes or whatever time seems appropriate for message. Limit the ads to a month before Primaries and a month before the General Elections.

Candidates could still do their mail campaigns and advertise in whatever newspapers still exist and online.

Does anyone else remember reading about this as a solution?

[Jim Lane]

15. The "limit the ads" part would be unconstitutional under current interpretations

A candidate who has money and wants to buy additional ads (beyond the mandated freebies) would have to be allowed to do so.

Requiring the broadcast stations to provide some free ads to candidates, as a condition of getting the license, would probably be allowed. (It might have to be made effective only as licenses are renewed or newly issued, but the phase-in period wouldn't be long.) Imposing that requirement on cable stations would be dicier. The Fairness Doctrine was in effect when broadcast had a much higher percentage of the market than it does today. The scarcity of broadcast spectrum space, and consequent need for government licensing, provided a basis for regulation. It's clear that a Fairness Doctrine applied to printed newspapers or the Internet would be unconstitutional.

[KoKo]

16. Given that there is a Monopoly of Three Cable Providers

and I think only two Satellite Providers ....would it be possible to do it across the board? Or does the fact that "Cable" is not considered "the People's Airwaves" the way radio and Networks are that they are considered special private entities and not required to be licensed in the same way. With most people using cable or satellite these days...it would seem that some kind of standard would be in place grandfathered in from the Network days since they are now transmitted over Cable/Satellite for the most part.

Thanks for your reply. I've done some searching and there have been some articles about restoring parts of the "Fairness Doctrine." But, nothing seems to get much traction with the public or interest groups. We had it for a long time and it worked better than what we have today for those of us who remember it.

[Jim Lane]

17. Broadcast is different because of scarcity of spectrum space.

That most people use nonbroadcast media doesn't matter. The rationale for allowing a curtailment of First Amendment rights is that the government prohibits people from just starting up a new broadcast station. All the available frequencies have been assigned, so you couldn't just start broadcasting. By contrast, you could put your own satellites into orbit and start your own network to compete against DirecTV and Dish.

Obviously, there are practical obstacles to that -- but in 1791 there were practical obstacles to just starting up your own newspaper.

I'm not sure about the status of cable. If no cable company is allowed to put in all the necessary infrastructure without a license, and if the government limits the number of licenses, that might be a basis for treating cable more like broadcast TV than like a printed newspaper.

[KoKo]

18. I did some more research....This goes back to Clinton/Gore Commission

WHAT MEDIA CORPORATIONS DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT THEIR LEGISLATIVE AGENDAS
2000
from PublicIntegrity Website

recovered through WayBackMachine Website

The CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY, founded in 1989 by a group of concerned Americans, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt educational organization created so that important national issues can be investigated and analyzed over a period of months without the normal time or space limitations.

Since its inception, the Center has investigated and disseminated a wide array of information in more than sixty Center reports. The Center’s books and studies are resources for journalists, academics, and the general public, with databases, backup files, government documents, and other information available as well.

The Center is funded by foundations, individuals, revenue from the sale of publications and editorial consulting with news organizations. The Joyce Foundation and the Town Creek Foundation provided financial support for this project.

CHAPTER 1
Profiteering from Democracy

In his January 1998 State of the Union address, after decrying the campaign-fundraising “arms race,” President Bill Clinton proposed a major new policy that would address a big part of the problem - the high cost of campaign commercials.

“I will formally request the Federal Communications Commission act to provide free or reduced-cost television time for candidates,” the President said.

“The airwaves are a public trust, and broadcasters also have to help us in this effort to strengthen our democracy.”1

Within 24 hours, Federal Communications Commission chairman William Kennard announced that the FCC would develop new rules governing political ads.2

But days later, the powerful broadcast corporations and their Capitol Hill allies managed to halt this historic initiative. In the Senate, Commerce Committee chairman John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and Conrad Burns, a Republican from Montana and the chairman of that panel’s communications subcommittee, announced that they would legislatively block the FCC’s free air time initiative.

“The FCC is clearly overstepping its authority here,” McCain said.3

In the House of Representatives, 17 Republicans including Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Appropriations chairman Bob Livingston, future House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House Commerce Committee’s telecommunications subcommittee, sent a blunt letter to Kennard.

“Only Congress has the authority to write the laws of our nation, and only Congress has the authority to delegate to the Commission programming obligations by broadcasters,” they wrote.

Ranking House Commerce Committee member John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat, also sent an opposing letter to Kennard.4 Faced with the very real threat that his agency’s budget would be cut, Kennard had no choice but to retreat from the proposed rulemaking.

It was a humiliating and metaphorical moment for the FCC. In a very public way, the agency and the White House had been flattened “like a pancake,” recalls former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, Kennard’s immediate predecessor. But the threat of a shrunken budget and a congressional backlash "The likes of which would not be pleasant to the Federal Communications Commission under any circumstances,” was the way Livingston described it) caused the FCC to back down.5

Free air time went from the fast track to the back burner.

Many politicians in power tend to fear free air time for the leg up it would give to challengers. And more than that, free air time for political candidates would affect the bottom line of a very important industry and Washington player - the media industry. It would cost broadcasters millions of dollars in lost advertising revenue.

They were not about to allow a direct affront to their financial self-interest become law.

Indeed, the media’s success in handling the threat of free air time for candidates is but one of a stack of proposals that media companies have flattened like pancakes in Congress and the White House in recent years. Which is why the media is widely regarded as perhaps the most powerful special interest today in Washington - not that you are likely to read, see or hear much about it in national news media stories.

Today, the giant media conglomerates are as often as not taking sides in their own self interests in some of the most pressing issues of the day. From proposed limits on the advertising of tobacco companies to federal giveaways like rights to the digital spectrum - a $70 billion gift to broadcasters - the “public papers” of today have a wide range of pernicious projects of their own.

Even with the advent of mass communication, which in theory gives the most remote inhabitant of the nation a front-row seat to the doings of Congress and the executive branch, the alarm has rarely been sounded.

How do media corporations win friends and influence people in our nation’s capital? The old-fashioned way, by using the time-honored techniques with which business interests routinely reap billions of dollars worth of subsidies, tax breaks, contracts, and other favors. The media lobby vigorously. They give large donations to political campaigns.

They take politicians and their staffs on junkets.

Lobbying

Since 1996, the 50 largest media companies and four of their trade associations have spent $111.3 million to lobby Congress and the executive branch of the government.

The number of registered, media-related lobbyists has increased from 234 in 1996, the year the historic Telecommunication Act became law, to 284 lobbyists in 1999.

And last year, the amount of money spent on lobbyists was $31.4 million, up 26.4 percent from the $24.8 million spent in 1996. By way of comparison, in 1998, when media firms spent $28.5 million lobbying, securities and investment firms spent $28 million, labor unions spent $23.7 million, and lawyers spent $19.1 million.

The media wasn’t the biggest lobbying interest (airlines spent $38.6 million, defense contractors $48.7 million, and electric utilities spent $63.7 million).7 But unlike the media, none of those interests has the power to determine what subjects are covered in the local paper or on the evening news.
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The rest is an interesting read from way back at:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_mediacontrol61.htm

[KoKo]

4. BTW...this Article is a Very Long Read...(An Over the weekend Project)

given the lack of time we all have to spend on this Political Stuff given the AUSTERITY and us wanting to spend time with our FAMILY.

But...Bookmark it ...or Save it for some future read. We DU'ers who've been here "trying to do Activism" for years.......would want to read it. So....we can move on from this kind of "Think Tank" Donation SYSTEM...where we are just gullible, compliant people.

This is a "Wake Up Call" showing "We Can Do Better." We need to do it on OUR OWN...and be CLEVER and RESOURCEFUL...and get rid of these people who Drain Our Energy with FALSE HOPES of Resolution..........

Sorry to shout with some "Full Caps" but...Damn It...we need a NEW MODEL for PROGRESSIVISM for the PEOPLE.

[rhett o rick]

6. I agree with the article. But this is not to say we shouldn't use every tactic at our

disposal.

Thank you for posting.

[KoKo]

7. check out my Post #3....there was a movement to do this...

I posted this out in DU "GD" and no one answered but....I'm sure this was proposed as a solution to get around "Citizens United" that was an article from somewhere....but, I can't find it. I can do Deep Search (will get to it when I can) but...what do you think about that proposal in my Post about going after FCC to get revision of "Fairness Doctrine" back?

What do you think?

Could we do this? It sounds more reasonable to me than the proposals in that Article I linked?